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Druids as tanks
thumb|The Druid Bear Form Shapeshift into a bear, increasing Attack Power by 3 * level, Armor contribution from items by 180%/360%, and Health by Y. Also protects the caster from polymorph effects and allows the use of various bear abilities. One of two tanking classes in the game, the druid is able to enter bear form and take the role of Tanking. The Bear Form The druid has two tanking forms: Bear Form obtained by quest at level 10 and Dire Bear Form obtained via trainer at level 40. The forms are the same except that Dire Bear has an even greater armor boost compared to bear form. The Bear Form is the druid tank form. When a druid shapeshifts into bear the following things happen: * Health: The Druid's base health is increased by 1240 (at level 60) * Attack Power: The Druid gains Attack Power equal to their level * 3 (180 Attack at level 60). * Armor: The druid gains a 180%/360% armor boost from items (depending on Bear/Dire Bear form). The bonus is additive, meaning that if you have 1000 armor from items, Bear form will grant you: 1000 + 1000 * 1.8 = 2800 armor from items, while Dire Bear will grant you 1000 + 1000 * 3.6 = 4600 armor. * Threat (Aggro): The druid will obtain a 30% increase in all threat generated. This is the same bonus that the warrior is granted by Defensive Stance. Tanking-related talents All of the druid trees have talents which improve tanking ability in some way. This also means most "tanking-specced" druids will have talent points in all trees. * With 5/5 Natural Weapons, Tier 2 Balance: Physical damage done is increased by 10% (resulting in effectively a 10% increase in threat caused). * With 1/1 Omen of Clarity, Tier 3 Balance: Allows the druid to enter a clearcasting state on a melee attack, reducing the mana/energy/rage cost of the next ability by 100% (effectively giving a rage-free maul or swipe「sidenote: OoC can proc on any melee hit, making it possible to Swipe spam with it indefinitly」). * With 5/5 Ferocity, Tier 1 Feral Combat: Rage cost on Maul and Swipe is reduced by 5. * With 5/5 Feral Instinct, Tier 2 Feral Combat: Threat generated is increased by 15% while in Bear Form (Threat modifier goes from 30% to 45%). * With 5/5 Thick Hide, Tier 2 Feral Combat: Increases armor benefit by 10%. So the multiplier for armor is 5.06 instead of 4.6 for Dire Bear form. * With 5/5 http://www.wowwiki.com/Druid_Talents#Thick_Hide, Tier 2 Feral Combat: Armor contribution from items in any form is increased by 10%. The Bear Form multiplier comes on top of this, giving an effective 4.6*1.1 (506%) armor increase from a druid in caster form without this talent. * With 1/1 Feral Charge, Tier 3 Feral Combat: Allows the druid to charge in Bear Form. This ability works like a warrior's Intercept except it does not require stance switching and is on 15 second cooldown. * With 3/3 Sharpened Claws, Tier 3 Feral Combat: Critical Strike chance is increased by 6% while in Bear Form. * With 3/3 Predatory Strikes, Tier 4 Feral Combat: Attack Power in increased by 150% of level (to a max of 90 Attack Power at level 60). * With 2/2 Primal Fury, Tier 4 Feral Combat: The druid gains 5 rage for every critical hit they do in Bear Form. * With 1/1 Fearie Fire (Feral), Tier 5 Feral Combat: Decreases the armor of the target by 505. This ability does not stack with itself, does not cost any rage and is on a 6 second cooldown. Also generates a small amount of threat. * With 5/5 Heart of the Wild, Tier 6 Feral Combat: Stamina is increased by 20% granting an additional Health boost. * With 5/5 Furor, Tier 1 Restoration: The druid gains 10 Rage everytime they switch to Bear/Dire Bear Form. * With 2/2 Improved Enrage, Tier 2 Restoration: The druid gains 10 additional rage instantly upon using Enrage. Bears Only, No Lions and Panthers, Please To date, a Bear has tanked every raid instance currently available, and every boss including Nefarian, despite their Class Call. A druid is in itself a very viable tank. A Protection-specced warrior is often the best Main Tank for large raids but a feral druid is just as viable if not more so than an Arms/Fury warrior for almost all of the current game content, particularly in an Off Tank role or when AoE tanking is involved. We will now go through the different aspects of tanking, as a druid. Advantages to a druid tank One of the largest and most important advantages includes the potential to generate lots of aggro (More on this below). There are other advantages that only apply to certain encounters. Druids are immune to polymorph and mind control effects (not charmed effects like Hakkar or Jin'Do totems though). Along with immunity to polymorph, druids are almost near impossible to snare in any way. Encounters that "snare" the tank which causes the loss in aggro, druids can just do a double shift and get right back to tanking. Druids can't be disarmed. Druids have Feral Charge, which allows them to near-instantly re-engage a mob after getting knocked back. Disadvantages to a druid tank Druids cannot use consumables (e.g. potions) in bear form. Druids have fewer "oh crap" buttons (Druids only have Frenzied Regen in Bear form although they can risk a double-shift to use a consumable or cast a spell like Barkskin or Regrowth/Rejuv on themselves). Druids do not have skills that make them immune to fear. Druids can only attempt it through several trinkets on high cooldowns (the Insignia of the Alliance/Horde on 5 minute cooldown and the Glimmering Mithril Insignia if the druid has chosen blacksmithing). Damage Migitation Druids have fewer ways of mitigating damage, so they must specialize their gear in order to maximize their advantages. They rely heavily on their armor to mitigate damage and their large HP pool to provide a more comfortable buffer for their healers. Druids absorb devastating hits. As such, druids may take more big hits yet generally will have lower, more stabilized incoming damage. Druids will take crits and the crit on the druid will often land for less than a crushing blow would on a warrior. Since they rely more on mitigation then avoidance, the less spiky damage is often easier to heal as longer cast heals can be used without as much fear of overhealing. Despite the fact that druids cannot Parry or Block, +Defense gear is still excellent for them, helping their Dodge as well as decreasing the amount of crits and hits taken. Unfortunately the leather itemization of +Defense is almost nonexistant. Poor itemization and the lack of Defensive Stance also hurts druid tanks in resist fights where, once again they must rely on their increased health to survive long enough for their healers to pull them thru. Threat Generation Based on extensive mathmatical testing and empirical evidence it is clear a Bear Tank's Threat Per Second potential is extremely high. While many unbiased people are coming to realize this fact, many people are confused why this is the case. The answer if that a Bear Tank's threat generation works very differently from a Warrior Tank's threat generation. Bear Tanks rely a lot more on a multiplicative damage based threat generation while Warrior Tanks rely more on additive "innate threat" skills like Sunder Armor. Druid Threat Multipliers Bear Tank's have both Threat-only multipliers and Damage-based threat multipliers for their two main threat generation skills. The formula is: Damage * Skill's threat multiplier * Bear form multiplier = threat generated The Bear form threat bonus is identical to a Warrior in Defensive Stance of 1.3 and just like 5/5 Defiance, 5/5 Feral Instinct adds another 15% for a total threat multiplier of 1.45. The Skill threat multiplier of Maul and Swipe are 1.75, as tested by Chibi of Shadow Moon here meaning they generate 175% of the equivalent mitigated damage done before any other multipliers. The talents Natural Weapons and Savage Fury add 1.1 and 1.2 multpliers to damage done which in turn indirectly increases overall threat generated. Archieving maul crits over 1K in damage versus raid bosses are entirely possible for well geared Bear Tanks. Although auto-attacks and non-damage based threat like Feral Faerie Fire and Demoralizing Shout add to overall Threat Per Second, lets take the the example a non-crit Maul that hits for 400 damage. Its total threat generated is given by this formula: 500 * 1.75 * 1.45 = 1268 This means that for every Maul a Bear Tank can land every 2.5 seconds, a Mage with no threat reduction in place would need to output 1268 damage to generate the same amount of threat, or 507 DPS. Also, given that with raid buffs a druid can easily reach Mauls for 600+ non-crit and that Druids also have the option of using Swipe as a rage dump and that a well-geared Bear Tank can have over 30% crit rates fully buffed, it becomes clear that Druids can generate a truly astronomical amount of threat. This also means that a Bear Tank's threat generation and thus aggro-holding ability benefits more from damage and crit increasing buffs, as well as armor reducing debuffs like Sunder Armor, Expose Armor and Faerie Fire when applied to a trashmob/boss. Snap Aggro Druids have both a single target Taunt and an AOE Taunt. If the Bear Tank in question is a Feral Druid, they will most likely also have the talent of Feral Faerie Fire which requires no rage and greatly assists in intial aggro establishment as well as allowing a druid to perform a ranged pull without having to shift out of Bear form and use a mana based ranged spell. While Feral Faerie Fire's armor debuff does not stack like Sunder Armor, each application continues to generate some threat even when the debuff is already applied much like a 5x stack of Sunder Armor. Knockbacks There is really only one thing to be said here, Feral Charge. Makes most any knockbacks null versus a druid Fear Some encounters, notably Magmadar, Onyxia, and Nefarian, require fear-eliminating abilities. A Druid will be significantly less viable in these encounters as a tank (though it has been done). Druids can also use fear-dispelling trinkets such as Insignia of the Alliance/Horde and the Glimmering Mithril Insignia, but these are on a far higher cooldown than most bosses fear and thus are not viable. Disarm Druids cannot be disarmed in bear form, as they attack with natural weapons. This is not that big of a factor, as few bosses currently disarm (one notable exception is General Rajaxx, but this is only a factor if Lieutenant General Andorov dies). Emergency Buttons Druids have Frenzied Regeneration, consuming 10 rage per second for 10 seconds to heal for up to 200 health each tick and up to 300 on criticals of the ability. Each tick has the chance to crit. This ability is on a 3 minute cooldown. In addition they have the ability to use trinkets. Druids can use items which are typically used pre-fight such as flasks and several longer duration potions, however, a druid cannot re-apply these midfight unless he switches out to caster form. Weapon Procs Druids cannot utilize "Chance on Hit" procs on weapons, precluding the use of Windfury, Crusader, and other enchants. They can, however, make use of "Chance on Hit" abilities in other slots. Polymorphing Bosses When a tank is polymorphed, they lose aggro. Druids are completely immune to polymorph in Bear Form, so they will not lose aggro. There are a few encounters that use polymorphing: Jin'do the Hexxer and Blackwing Spellbinders in Blackwing Lair. Category:Druids